On December 24, 1929 President Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou were hosting a holiday party, including the children of the President's aides and friends. In the hallway the Marine Band played Christmas songs. The President was enjoying the festivities when Ike Hoover, the White House usher, came into the room and whispered in the president’s ear. The president and his secretaries were needed immediately. Rarely has a crisis so immediately required the attention of the chief executive.
In 1906, a famed explorer saw something on the horizon that would lead an expedition of men to search for a magnificent land they hoped would be full of new and undiscovered treasures for science.
One famous dolphin lived near the shores of New Zealand in the late 1800s, and swam alongside hundreds of ships, becoming a beloved figure to locals and foreigners alike, and described as ”the best known fish in the world.”
It was relatively common in the middle ages for Kings, royals, and various other titled men to die in combat, and they were at least usually expected to fight personally. Despite the dangers of medieval combat and the expectations of nobility, however, many at the highest levels of aristocracy died in less than noble mundane accidents, and even in embarrassing circumstances.
While the Bulge was one of the final offensive operations, it was not the last one - and not even the last one on the Western Front. While the Battle of the Bulge was being fought, German planners launched another operation further south into France in the much less remembered Operation Nordwind.
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On July 12, 2025, the lodge on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was burned down in the Dragon Bravo fire, along with dozens of other structures including the North Rim visitor center and numerous guest cabins. The lodge was a storied structure that had stood for nearly 100 years, but it wasn’t the first time that a lodge on the North Rim burned down.
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